Pressure sensors have a wide range of applications for industrial and personal use, but most pressure sensors are not suitable for the users to wear due to drawbacks such as large in size, high weight, hard touch feeling and inconvenience to use. Thus, their applications for personal use are highly limited, for example, sports clothing, smart clothing, footwear, etc, which are on the occasion in close contact with human body for pressure measurement. Fabric pressure sensor is a new type of pressure sensor. As it is mainly composed of resistance-type fabric sensing element and flexible structural material, it has many advantages, such as soft touch, light weight, long life span, and suitability for three-dimensional and large-area measurement. Fabric pressure sensor and its products have a wide range of applications in clothing and footwear, health care and rehabilitation, clinical medicine, sports, safety and protection, automobiles, aerospace, construction and other fields.
FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 show the schematic views of two fabric pressure sensors respectively. The fabric pressure sensor adopts a sandwich structure, which comprises a resistance-type fabric sensing element 1-1 in the middle, an upper conversion layer based on silicone 2-1 or silicone-fabric composite (silicone 2-2, fabric 2-3) on the top, a lower conversion layer based on silicone 3-1 or silicone-fabric composite (silicone 3-2, fabric 3-3) at the bottom, an adjustment column 4-1 and a connecting wire 5-1 of the sensing fabric. The external pressure exerted on the upper and lower conversion layers convert into the deformation of the sensing fabric in the middle, thereby causing the change in resistance of the sensing fabric and output. The contour in the middle of the upper and lower conversion layers may adopt the toothed shape as shown in the figures or other shapes according to the application requirements. The stiffness of the material used for the adjustment column 4-1 can be adjusted to adapt to the different measurement requirements. The fabric pressure sensor in FIG. 1 uses silicone-based upper and lower conversion layers, and the fabric pressure sensor in FIG. 2 uses the conversion layers based on silicone-fabric composite.
Different from conventional silicone-based and film-type pressure sensors, the fabric pressure sensors are made of flexible materials, which deform easily in the manufacturing process. Therefore, it is necessary to develop and establish a corresponding process, equipment and tool for manufacturing flexible pressure sensors.